Cascade Lakes And The High Peaks Around Mt. Marcy

The dogs and I were driving north through the Adirondacks on our way to the farm. We'd stopped at the Marcy Field trail head as well as the roadside park on the shores of the Ausable River. There was still snow in the woods of the Adirondacks, but the roads and open spaces had melted and the air was pleasant. We began our ascent up Route 73 into the high peaks region:



After a bit of driving uphill, we arrived at the beautiful Cascade Chain of lakes:

This series of small lakes stretches out along the highway in a deep valley with mountains on both sides. As you can see, the surface of the lakes was still frozen:

And some snow remained in the mountains. I tried to pull into the little park which had been buried in snow all winter, but found that the entrance road was still unplowed and impassable:

Yes, it still looked like winter, but the air felt very much like spring:

It's all so close to the road in that narrow valley that the dogs had to stay in the car. Besides, they'd just had a rest stop at Marcy Field:

Right next to the road were the towering cliffs of small but steep mountains:

And then we drove on towards Lake Placid, where the mountains are much larger:

The views across the hay fields just south of Lake Placid were magnificent. If you wanted to hike up Mount Marcy, you'd begin on this road:

And just ahead we could see the ski jump towers of the Olympic Complex at Lake Placid. We were on our way: